Welcome to Casino Royale

It’s not often that you get a chance to Q the official launch workout for a new AO, so I jumped at the chance. There was some chatter about EC the afternoon before the workout, so YHC went out and scouted a nice hilly 2 mile route with a shot at a couple Strava segments aka hills. Rolled into the parking lot at 0500 to 2 PAX eager to get after it, waited until 0505 then headed out.
EC: Fumunga, ShamWow, Boy George. T-claps to Fumunga charging the hills to try to take the crowns away from the notorious Evan Darm, some dude who has stolen many of them from me in Fuquay. Got one, maybe the other next time. The full 2 mile route is also a segment, hoping this is enough to lure some PAX from the Sprangs to go after that crown.
FNGs: none
Warm Up: Knowing we needed to get 3 miles today, we started off on the mosey. This AO has a great 800ish meter loop (1/2 mile) with easy landmarks every 200 meters. We spent the warm-up lap stopping every 100 meters for exercises, and I also noted where our 4 corners would be for the workout. Exercises were Daisy pickers, windmills, seal claps, Frankensteins, overhead claps, Sir Fazio arm circle forward/reverse, and good mornings. All had 5 reps in cadence (6 for GM).
The Workout: After returning to the starting corner, we reviewed our stopping points. Each lap would have the same exercise at each corner, with increasing reps. Once the faster PAX finished running back to the start, they loop back to pick up the 6, and then we finish each 1/2 mile loop with a bonus exercise.
Corner 1 – Dips IC
Corner 2 – Carolina Dry Docks
Corner 3 – Diamond Merkins
Corner 4 – Arm Haulers – laying on your belly with your knees and head up off the ground, starting in the Superman position, bring your arms back to slap your glutes, then back to Superman is 1 rep.

Lap 1 – 5 reps at each station, bonus exercise is…. crap I forgot the bonus exercise! Probably because I was up all night stressing about not forgetting the workout, and I was so tired I forgot the workout.

Lap 2 – 10 reps each station. Bonus exercise is 5 burpees – had plans to make this a double merkin with a plank jack burpee (so down, merkin, plank jack, merkin, back up), but was feeling nice this morning.

Lap 3 – 15 reps each station. Some mumble chatter about how we were going to die if we ended up getting up to 25 reps. They didn’t know YHC had something nice and easy in store for them. Bonus exercise – 5 absolutions.

Lap 4 – 10 reps each station, because I’m a nice Q and we were running short on time (not really). Bonus exercise – 6 Blue Devils (3 each side) – a Bobby Hurley (squat jump with a basketball jump shot form), into a Turkish Getup (flopping like the Dukies are known for).

Lap 5 – Chase the Rabbit. We ditched the exercises this time in favor of some fast strides. A bit of confusion on stopping points, but the intention was to run hard for 100 meters then recover for 100 meters. YHC counted down 3…2…1…Go! for each PAX, and you were supposed to try to chase down the PAX in front. We did 4 of these and at that point we were pretty smoked.
Mary: The PAX all pushed hard to finish our miles so quickly that we still had 6 minutes left, just as I had hoped. I have a yoga stretching routine I like to do after runs that usually takes about 15 minutes, but I condensed it down and we quickly moved through about 8 different positions on each leg, stretching out our quads, hamstrings, hips, back, and glutes. Pretty sure everyone felt like a million bucks after that. Ended with Have a nice day, and one last leg stretch while doing our count-off/name-o-rama.
Announcements:

• Casino Royale is open! We discussed our monthly schedule and think we have it – 1st Friday – HIIT/3 miles like we did today, 2nd Friday – Dealer’s Choice (card deck, dice game, etc.), 3rd Friday – Running / speed work, 4th Friday – Kettle/dumbbells and TRX bands. Get on the Q sheet!
• 1776 workout being led by Skidmark. 0600 at Womble on Saturday July 4th. 7.4 miles of running, 1776 reps of exercises.
• Continuing mulch work at Bass Lake. Almost 1/2 mile done. No mulching July 4th.

T-Claps (Recognition): EVERYONE for pushing hard today! There were some pretty large sweat puddles after COT
Prayer:

• Praise! Natty Ice and M’s pregnancy is going great. Baby Hannah is at 26 weeks. Prayers for continued healthy pregnancy and delivery.
• Fumunga’s co-worker dealing with breast cancer and upcoming surgery
• LipSync’s M’s friend’s husband (can’t remember his name) – an F3 guy that also runs a lot was out for a run and had some chest pains. Found out he had a blockage in his widowmaker but was able to get fixed up and make a full recovery. Good reminder to PAX to listen to our bodies and not overdo it, and get checked out if something doesn’t feel right.

YHC took us out. Always so much fun to Q, and I appreciate all the H.I.M. that came out to help get this AO off on the right foot.